Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for contributing to the debate on this motion. In substance, it is a technical motion providing for the carrying forward of more than €700 million of the capital budget from 2020 into 2021, in order that those funds will be available for expenditure across a range of areas under the public capital investment programme. It will not be possible for me to respond to all the individual local projects that were mentioned during the debate but I am sure colleagues across the House will be engaging with the line Departments and with the sponsoring bodies in respect of all those individual projects.

The €710 million that is being provided in 2021, in addition to the budget already provided, will bring the overall capital expenditure allocation for 2021 to around €10.8 billion, which is a new record high in the history of the State. To allay some of the concerns that were raised, the actual expenditure in 2020, notwithstanding the significant impact of Covid-19, substantially exceeded the original budget. The original budget in 2020 was around €8.2 billion in capital terms and the actual spend across the public capital programme in 2020 exceeded €9 billion. It is important to put that on the record.

As colleagues know, we are undertaking the review of the national development plan, NDP, with a view to ensuring that it is consistent with Project Ireland 2040. Sitting alongside the national planning framework, the NDP is a vital document setting out a roadmap for the development of our country over the next decade and beyond. There will be a requirement to reconsider the priorities in the NDP in the context of developments that have taken place, including the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the changes that have been forced upon us are here to stay to a greater or lesser extent. There is a renewed commitment to tackling the climate emergency and that will feature strongly in the review of the NDP, in addition to investment in transport, housing policy, implementation of Sláintecare, and balanced regional development to ensure that happens in a meaningful and tangible way.

In addition to all the traditional forms of capital that we always associate with the public capital programme, such as the building of schools and roads and the improvement of public transport infrastructure, capital expenditure also relates to digitalisation, investing in e-health and ensuring we have modern systems across our public services. It can also provide funding for grants through IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, for example. Over the course of 2020, restart grants in the order of €700 million were provided to businesses. The traditional concept of capital expenditure has evolved and changed over that period. Of course, investment in broadband is also a key area and a very important plank of the Government's capital investment programme.

As part of the NDP review we need to improve delivery, and this aligns with the comments of a number of Deputies. It is a priority for me as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to improve the capacity of the system to deliver. As part of phase 1 of the review of the NDP, there is a lot of technical work under way evaluating the capacity of the public sector to deliver on major public capital projects. We are also looking at alternative financing methods, such as public private partnerships, for example. We are looking at investment trends and the return the State gets from its public capital programme. We will be moving on to phase 2 in the next few months and will eventually agree a new ten-year NDP, which will be exciting and ambitious and will align with the priorities of this Government and broadly with those of this House and the country as well. I again thank all Deputies for their contributions and support for this motion.

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